Charles Armand Tuffin

Charles Armand Tuffin (13 April 1751-30 January 1793) was a Breton cavalry officer who served as a Brigadier-General in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War before taking part in a royalist insurrection in Brittany (the Chouannerie) during the French Revolutionary Wars.

Biography
Charles Armand Tuffin was born on 13 April 1751 in Fougeres, France. Tuffin was a troubled youth, being ejected from the Gardes Francaises for dueling the Count of Bourbon-Busset, a nobleman, and for being involved in a failed attempt to marry actress Mademoiselle Fleury. Tuffin took poison and went to La Trappe monastery to die, but his friends saved him. In 1776, Tuffin decided to leave France behind and left Nantes for the Thirteen Colonies to fight for the Continental Army against Great Britain. He was forced to walk into America naked with three surviving servants after his ship was sunk by the Royal Navy. In late 1779, he was given command of Armand's Legion, which replaced Casimir Pulaski's "Pulaski's Legion" of cavalry, and on 25 June 1778 he was made a Colonel. Tuffin fought at the Battle of Monmouth, the Battle of Camden, and the Siege of Yorktown, and on 26 March 1783 he was promoted to Brigadier-General. Tuffin left the Continental Army on 25 November 1783 after becoming close friends with George Washington, although he is less-remembered than fellow French volunteer Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. Unlike Lafayette, Tuffin fought for the rights of the nobles, and he was angry to see the Breton nobles by ruled by the Third Estate. In 1792, he joined the Chouannerie, a rebellion by Breton royalists against the First French Republic. On 19 January 1793, Tuffin fell sick from pneumonia and died on 30 January.